Pryke leads search for new Contact chairman
Contact Energy’s interim chairman, Phil Pryke, is planning a campaign of approaches to institutional and retail investors in the company as he oversees the search for a new chair and prepares for a likely battle to be re-elected to the board of the company he helped found in 1995.
Pryke said he would not seek the chairmanship again — a role he held between 1995 and 2004, before Origin Energy bought a majority shareholding from the company’s first cornerstone investor, Californian company Edison Mission Energy. Origin sold its 53.1 per cent shareholding in Contact this month.
Pryke says he wants to remain on the Contact board and will face reelection at the annual meeting, which will be delayed until December to allow a search process to identify at least a new chair, if not two to three other new directors to complement the two whose positions are secure for now — Whaimutu Dewes and former Chorus chairwoman Sue Sheldon.
While former Origin appointee pursued fee increases for directors and his muted commentary on the finely balanced merits of the 2001 EME takeover bid.
The most important role for the remaining members of the Contact board was to find a new chair who would lead the company into a likely period of disruptive change in the electricity industry, akin to the impact of digital technology on the telecommunications sector from the mid-1990s.
“A similar set of things will happen in customerland in the electricity sector, except the cycle time will be faster,” he said. “The focus of control over consumption is shifting from the producer to the customer.
“The question you’ve got to ask is, to the extent that the margins still exist, how do you efficiently serve customers to get better control of their capturing of some of that margin?
“For example, that might include helping customer afford batteries to store solar power generated on rooftop generators and find mutually beneficial ways for power companies and consumers to profit from excess production from home-generation units.”
Delaying the AGM would allow time to identify a new chair and targets for additional directors.